To examine the presence of interaction rules and strategies used in therapy, the verbal responses of therapists and clients in 26 actual psychotherapy cases were coded using the Interpersonal Communication Rating Scale (ICRS; S. R. Strong, H. Hills, C. Kilmartin, et al., 1988). The conditional response probabilities of these MRS codes were…

Within the literature on group counseling and psychotherapy, the structure of therapeutic group processes is frequently described in terms of stages of the group process. Numerous group stages have been proposed to describe the social interaction and change in social interaction that is characteristic of group therapy. This study examined the…

The length of the counseling relationship (number of sessions) was studied in relationship to (1) counselors' understanding of their clients' views of the depth and smoothness of their sessions and (2) clients' perceptions of being understood (regarding their views of their counseling sessions) by their counselors. Participants (17 therapists and…

The first part of this paper examines using meta-analysis as a basis for making probabilistic statements about client outcome by revisiting Smith and Glass's (1977) classic paper concerning meta-analysis of psychotherapy outcome studies. While it may be argued that making probabilistic statements was not the primary purpose of meta-analysis, Smith…

The similarity between clients' perceptions of their therapists and their parents was studied in terms of relationship qualities. Participants were 62 actual therapy dyads. Results did not support the hypothesis but suggest that therapists' perceptions of transference may reflect perceptions of their clients' nontransferential, or "real…

This investigation tested the hypothesis that the probabilistic structure underlying psychotherapy interviews is Markovian. The "goodness of fit" of a first-order Markov chain model to actual therapy interviews was assessed using a x squared test of homogeneity, and by generating by Monte Carlo methods empirical sampling distributions of…

The potential moderating role of self-esteem and ego development on client transference is examined. These are two developmental factors that the literature has suggested might influence people's perceptions of early caretakers and thus of therapists, leading to transference in the therapy situation. Transference was operationalized as (a) the…

Therapeutic outcome as a function of a transition from relational incongruence to congruence, and the association of relational congruence and control with qualitative aspects of the therapy relationship and outcome are studied. Therapist/client interactions within and across seven psychotherapy cases are described. Methods of study and results…

Certain interactional theorists propose that for counseling/psychotherapy to be effective, the therapist must control the definition of the therapy relationship. Although the relationship between patterns of relational dominance/control in counseling and counseling outcome seems reasonably well established, little is known of the relationship…

This study investigates the nature of therapist-client interactions within and across seven actual psychotherapy cases to investigate the assertion within interactional theories that positive therapeutic outcome is the result of a transition from relational incongruence to relational congruence. Counselor/client verbal utterances were coded using…